


Light and Arthur

by doomcanary



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Yuletide, Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-20
Updated: 2014-03-20
Packaged: 2018-01-16 08:24:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1338658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomcanary/pseuds/doomcanary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Light and Arthur have always gone together, in Merlin's mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light and Arthur

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for all episodes up to 1x11, more or less.

Light and Arthur have always gone together, in Merlin's mind; always been interwoven, intermingled. Light is almost part of the Prince. He shines, whenever sunlight touches him; it lights his hair like threads of gold, turns his eyes from the grey-blue of an ocean under clouds to a brilliant, intense turquoise. Light in Arthur's eyes takes Merlin's breath away, when those eyes flash up at the sound of his name; when they fix themselves upon an enemy, they burn. Light makes the dull workaday steel-grey of armour and chainmail into a web of searing reflections, flickers on sword-edges as Arthur faces down his opponents: champions, sparring partners, beasts. Light on a blade makes visible every tiny movement Arthur makes; every shift in anticipation of a feint, every change of attention and focus.

Light draws itself to Arthur, wherever he goes; even by a fireside, he wears it like a cloak, a mantle of golden warmth that smooths his skin to alabaster. In firelight, Arthur is like a lion, lounging on some arid and distant plain; he is strength in potential, violence stilled. His hand will hang loosely from the arm of a great oak chair, his powerful body lax; in firelight, he gazes into the flames with narrow eyes, and sips rich intoxicating wines. And the lambskins behind him are but evidence of his hunt.

Light and Arthur are one and the same, Merlin thinks; because now that Arthur's gone, there's no light left at all. High above him in a black sky are the pallid points of stars; their light is not enough. He stumbles on the uneven corner of a flagstone, rights himself with a hand on the freezing stone of the rampart wall; it comes away wet with frost. He folds his hands under his arms, shivering, and sits down on a low bench. A chilly breeze runs comfortless fingers through his hair.

Light spills out from a door, the same one he came through; a firefly detaches itself, comes bobbing and swaying towards where he sits. A lantern. Its glow illuminates Morgana, a carving of ebony and marble within the shadowy recesses of a hooded cape.

“I thought I might find you here,” she says.

Merlin says nothing.

“You can't leave it like this, you know.”

Merlin turns his head away; away from the lantern, away from the keen understanding in Morgana's eyes.

“Don't make me treat you like Arthur.”

The sound of his name brings Merlin back to the lantern-light, as if it could summon up the Prince.

“He's in his chambers, brooding. Go and talk to him.”

She pauses, looking down at him; then turns, and walks away. She's outlined by her little dancing flame, her cloak billowing.

Merlin starts to shiver in earnest; he can't stay outside. He goes to the door, and leans against the wall by the nearest torch, grateful for its petty warmth.

He can't go to Arthur. He'll go home; go back to Gaius's workshop, back to sputtering candles and shadows, both thick with the acrid smells of burning herbs. Gaius will ask him what's wrong, and he'll brush the question off, and go to bed.

Somehow he's come to the junction of corridors where he has to decide; he's standing beneath a great statue, a gryphon that stares regally ahead.

He can't go to Arthur. He can't.

Outside Arthur's door he freezes, not knowing whether to knock or not.

“I can hear you out there,” snaps Arthur's voice from within. “Stop dithering, whoever you are.”

Merlin opens the door.

“It's me,” he says.

Arthur turns, taking his hands from the chimney-piece. The lambskin chair is empty, and there's no firelight at all; Merlin wasn't there to lay one. He can't see the expression on Arthur's face.

“Come to enchant me, have you?” he says.

Merlin cringes, and hastily shuts the door.

“Arthur, it's not like that,” he says.

“One afanc, two murder attempts, a shield that sprouted snakes, an undead knight – do I have to go on?”

“Who do you think was helping you with all that?”

“Helping me?” says Arthur, suddenly suspicious. “What do you mean?”

“I mean afancs don't just catch fire by themselves when you wave a torch,” says Merlin. “I mean someone made the snakes come out, so everyone saw what Valiant was doing. I mean that knife didn't just slow down on its own. I mean Edwin, Arthur; someone had to stop him, too. And by the way, Gaius thinks Nimue was trying to murder me, not you.”

“You?” says Arthur, contempt twisting in his voice. “Why on earth would she want to -”

He stops. Merlin can almost hear the realisation click into place.

“You're really a warlock, then.”

Merlin can't decide whether to agree with him, or laugh.

“Ealdor,” says Arthur, stopping his thoughts in their tracks. “It wasn't Will, it was you.”

“Will was just a village kid,” says Merlin. “He was my friend.”

“He was more than that,” said Arthur. “He died saving my life.”

“He did it for both of us.”

There's a silence; only the faintest light filters in through the tall windows, from the stars, and the silver sliver of moon that's rising, low in the sky.

“Merlin -”  
“I don't -”

They stop.

“Show me something that's good,” says Arthur, pleadingly.

Merlin looks at the dim outline that is Arthur, inscrutable in the dark; he crosses to the window, and opens it. Leaning out, he whispers words into the night air; _come to me, little shining ones_.

He watches the sky for a moment, and then he stands back; and into the room behind him flow a stream of tiny pinpricks of light, flying on moth-like wings. They're fireflies, they're pixies, he doesn't know what they are; only that when he's alone in the forest at night gathering herbs, they creep down the tree-trunks and flitter onto leaves, drawn to him, lighting his way.

“What on Earth -?” says Arthur. Merlin looks at him, his face appearing and disappearing, distorted by the moving lights; he jerks his head back as thrumming wings fly too close.

“I don't know,” says Merlin. “They belong in the forest; they follow me.”

Gradually, the creatures settle, on the table, on the walls; one on Merlin's shoulder, and one hovers, then drops slowly onto Arthur's wondering, outstretched palm. Merlin leaves the window ajar for them.

“They're beautiful,” says Arthur. On his hand, the creature spreads out its wings, flexes its glowing abdomen up; its light begins to glow pink, instead of an eerie blue-white.

“I was terrified the first time they found me,” says Merlin. Arthur's doing much better than he did, honestly.

“I can't imagine I would have done anything other than swat them,” he says. The creature sitting on his palm snaps its wings closed; every tiny light in the room suddenly goes out.

“He didn't mean that,” says Merlin quietly. “You're safe here, all of you.”

There's a brief pause before Arthur says “I'm sorry; he's right.”

A dim pink glimmer shows in his palm. Merlin sees a similar light coming from beside his head.

“Really,” he says gently. “It's okay. He's just not used to you.”

All around him, the lights slowly reveal themselves again. One or two more of them turn pink.

“I can't imagine what this must be like, all the time,” says Arthur. He goes to the table, gently encourages the creature from his hand onto its surface; and pours himself a goblet of wine by its light.

“It's pretty incredible,” says Merlin. “When I'm not scared.”

“Bit like being a knight, then.”

“You might say that.”

Arthur goes to his chair, by the dark fireplace; he sits down, and takes a drink, just as if the fire was there. Merlin reaches out and sends kindling and logs from the basket to the fireplace, rolling and knocking against each other and making Arthur start; they bump into the fireguard, then jump into it, neatly piled.

“Shall I light it?” says Merlin.

“No,” says Arthur. “Not yet. I... rather like your friends.”

Several more of the creatures on the walls glow pink.

“Why do they turn pink?” Arthur asks.

“I don't know,” says Merlin. “I've never seen them do that before.”

There's a silence again; Merlin lifts his rosily glowing little companion off his shoulder with a careful finger, and transfers it to the wall. Without its light so close to his eyes, he watches Arthur take another drink, barely outlined by pale and pinkish light. His hair still seems to draw the light in, even now.

“Arthur, there is one more thing,” he says, putting a hand behind his back. Gaius told him what he did, with a kind of overprotective pride; and he's found the spell again since, though he doesn't know when the first time he must have read it was.

And slowly, up out of Arthur's goblet, rises a tiny glowing bubble; bluer than the fireflies, swirling and shimmering with a light all its own. It ripples and expands, until it's palm-sized; Arthur reaches up, awe on his face, then stills his hand and turns to Merlin.

“That was you,” he says.

Merlin takes his hand from behind his back; shows Arthur the identical bubble, rolling and twisting on his palm.

“I never knew,” he says. “Gaius says I did it in my sleep.”

Arthur comes over to him; the light-bubble dodges him as he moves, and drifts after him, hovering in the air. He reaches out, and touches the bubble with his fingertips; it bursts, and Merlin feels a little shock of cold, as if it shatters into powdered ice that tingles on his hand. The one behind Arthur's head shrinks and fades away into a wisp, like steam.

Arthur looks up into Merlin's eyes, and as he does it, the creatures around them pulse brighter, rippling their bodies; and like a wave spreading out from Arthur and Merlin, every one of them curls its tail over, and shines deep rosy pink.

In this light, Arthur is like nothing Merlin has ever seen before; there's shock and awe and wonder on his face, an unmappable mix of honour and delight, and his eyes are like amethysts in the rose-coloured glow, flicking from Merlin's eyes to his hand, and back again. Slowly, he takes Merlin's hand in both of his, resting it almost reverently between them, palm still up.

“I don't know whether you know,” he says, “what it's like, to be on your own somewhere dark – when you've got a task to do, and it looks impossible, and you know you've got to do it anyway – but...”

“Now you mention it,” Merlin says quietly, “I think I've got an idea.”

Destiny is vast, like the dragon's cavern; so much of it is dark, and only tiny parts are illumined by a strange and sourceless glow. But Merlin; Merlin's a warlock, a true magician. Light is in his blood; and Arthur is the prince who draws all light into himself, and shines out with it like a sun. Arthur closes his fingers around Merlin's hand, and Merlin's breath catches as he looks up into Arthur's eyes; light is all around them, perching on the walls, fluttering moths' wings. Drawn to Merlin, but gleaming for both of them. Arthur kisses him, or perhaps he kisses Arthur; as they wrap their arms around each other, the little glowing creatures take off as one. And as they hold each other close, they're wrapped in a moving globe of rose and gold; a bubble, made up of wings thrumming like heartbeats, and tiny bodies pulsing with Merlin's magic and their own.

**Author's Note:**

>  **A/N:** When I started writing this, it was as a pinch-hit for [](http://merlinadvent.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://merlinadvent.livejournal.com/)**merlinadvent** on the day in question because it seemed to be a bit thin – of course checking back three hours later the first thing I needed was a plate so I could eat my words like a civilised human being! Anyway, enjoy...


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